Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps her Department is taking to support research into cost-effective alternatives to coal for heavy industry.

The Department understands the need for industry to decarbonise as the UK moves towards net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. To support this priority, the Department is currently running, or intending to run, the following R&D programmes that focus on industrial decarbonisation, which may consider bids for cost-effective alternatives to coal:

- The Industrial Fuel Switching Competition is a £20m competition, funded by the BEIS £505m Energy Innovation Portfolio (2016-2021), which aims to identify and test the processes and technologies required for industries in the UK to switch to low carbon fuels;

- The Industrial Energy Transformation Fund was announced at Budget 2018 as a new fund worth up to £315 million to support businesses with high energy use to transition to a low carbon future and to cut their bills through increased energy efficiency;

- The Clean Steel Fund, is a £250m programme, currently under consultation, will support the UK steel sector to transition to lower carbon iron and steel production through new technologies and processes;

- The Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund has two relevant challenges, including the industrial decarbonisation challenge which is focused on heavy industry, and the Transforming Foundation Industries challenge, which is focused on energy and resource efficiency.